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PAGE 7—April 24,1980
Documents Indicate Pope Feels Seminary Training ‘Crucial’
BY JERRY FILTEAU
VATICAN CITY (NC) -- Two newly publicized Vatican documents show
that Pope John Paul II considers solid, thorough seminary training one of the
crucial conditions for church renewal.
Release of the documents by the Vatican press office April 11 caused a
flurry of news reports on them, although both had been sent to the world’s
bishops some time ago and were no secret.
The first, an “Instruction on Liturgical Formation in Seminaries” issued by
the Congregation for Catholic Education, bears the date June 3, 1979. It is
essentially a technical document giving norms that seminaries ought to meet in
order to provide priesthood candidates with a thorough practical and
theoretical understanding of the liturgy.
The second, also from the Catholic education congregation, is a “Circular
Letter Concerning Some of the More Urgent Aspects of Spiritual Formation in
Seminaries.” It was dated Jan. 6, 1980, and widely reported in the U.S.
Catholic press through NC News Service in February, shortly after it was sent
out to the world’s bishops.
Pervading both documents is a firm demand that seminary preparation for
the priesthood be thorough and balanced.
The liturgy instruction insists that seminarians be fully instructed in the
historical, theoretical and pastoral aspects of all liturgical acts.
It would not easily be classified as liberal or conservative, but might best be
called centrist.
In speaking about sacramentals, for example, it talks about the “religious
importance” of processions and the “usefulness and value” of blessings and
comments: “An attitude of respect for the various legitimate ways in which a
Christian practices his faith in the course of his life must be inculcated into the
students.”
But it immediately adds, “At the same time, seminarians should be warned
to be cautious and to avoid abuses and superstitions.”
The second document, on the spiritual life of seminarians, is less technical in
approach. As the word “urgent” in its title suggests, it talks of areas that are
more controversial and of greater popular concern in the church today.
It is particularly strong in emphasizing the Mass and the Eucharist as the
center of the spiritual life of seminarians and priests - a focus which draws
extensively on the Second Vatican Council and modern spiritual writings.
But it opposes the post-conciliar neglect or minimalization of some other
aspects of spiritual life that has taken place, particularly in Western Europe and
North America.
These areas include devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, meditation,
penance, self-denial, obedience and Marian devotion.
The letter has strong words on some of these topics:
- On eucharistic adoration: “A priest who does not have this fervor, who
does not acquire a taste for this adoration and is unable to communicate this to
others is betraying the Eucharist itself and is blocking the way of the faithful
to an incomparable treasure.”
- On confession: “The seminary must impart to its students a taste for this
private absolution along with one for communal celebrations of penance where
these are possible . . . One can probably attribute the striking slackening off in
the number of vocations at least partially to the gradual decline in the practice
of private confession. A seminary must realize that it is preparing future
‘spiritual directors.’”
- On self denial: “It is indispensable for everyone according to his state in
life. A priest cannot be faithful to the charge laid upon him and to all his
priestly commitments, especially celibacy, if he has not been prepared to
accept and impose upon himself real discipline.”
- On obedience: “The word ‘obedience’ must stop being a forbidden
word . . . One certainly cannot claim to be obedient to God when he refuses to
obey those to whom God has confided His mission.”
- On Marian devotion: “Christology is also Mariology. The fervor with
which our supreme pontiff, Pope John Paul II, lives the Marian mystery is
nothing other than fidelity.” £j
The document concludes with a novel suggestion of “a period of
preparation for the seminary, given over exclusively to spiritual formation.”
It does not spell out what kind of program should be followed for this. It
only says that it should take place “somewhere other than the seminary itself’
and should be “of sufficient duration.”
The letter says that there have been “surprising results” in areas where such
programs are already under way.
It comments: “We would like this suggestion to be followed and gradually
to become part of the normal seminary practice.”
In the mysterious world of the Vatican and the Italian media, this circular
letter appears to have been the source of mistaken news reports in March that
the pope was about to order the world’s priests to return to wearing cassocks in
the streets.
The letter contains a short section on clerical dress in which it makes two
major points:
- A priest must “appear before men for what he is, one of them, certainly,
but marked by a deep sign which sets him apart.” In other words, in his normal
dress he should show some distinctive sign - not specified in the document --
that makes him recognizable as a priest.
- “At the Eucharist people see the need and the meaning of clerical dress,
which has been too easily abandoned . . . The significance of the ‘sacraments of
faith’ is steadily degraded when a priest is habitually negligent about his
clothing or even fully secularized when he is the minister of them. These
sacraments include penance, anointing the sick, and, above all, the Eucharist.”
The second point refers specifically to the proper dress of priests while they
are engaged in administering the sacraments, when they are acting as liturgical
ministers.
The document bluntly deplores “not using the prescribed liturgical
vestments,” and says, “If this trend is thought to be inevitable, the end is
disastrous and fatal.”
The comments are clearly a call to end abuses, especially in liturgical
celebrations, but they cannot be interpreted as telling priests to wear cassock
and surplice when driving to the supermarket.
‘Pills And Pot Anonymous’
BY JO-ANN PRICE
ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N. Y.
(NC) - A group called Pills and Pot
Anonymous, organized by a nurse at
Mercy Hospital, is offering a helping
hand to drug users in suburbia.
Many PPA members are
middle-class, middle-aged housewives
and business people addicted to
tranquilizers. Others are young
people hooked on marijuana or other
drugs. They are people whose habit
interferes with their work or
everyday lives. Often it is linked to
alcoholism.
It was her work with alcoholics at
Mercy Hospital that prompted Jane
Ash, a nurse, to organize PPA at the
hospital along the lines of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
She found that after attending
traditional AA meetings in the
Rockville Centre and Hempstead
areas, patients trying to stop using
mood-altering chemicals as well as
alcohol “felt left out.” They
complained that “we feel like
outsiders” at AA sessions.
Using the traditional A A 12-step
formula, and calling for help upon
two PPA members from New York,
Miss Ash started the Mercy Hospital
organization. Instead of referring to
‘alcohol” the PPA meetings discuss
“pills” or “pot” or “mood-altering
drugs.”
This is the first PPA group in
suburban Nassau and Suffolk
counties on Long Island. A recent
study by the New York State
Committee on Prescription Drug
Abuse estimated that of 280,000
persons in New York state who used
Decade For Women
WASHINGTON (NC) -- A
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for the United Nations-sponsored
Decade for Women conference in
Denmark this summer will be held in
Washington May 12-14.
Listed among the consultation
sponsors are Bishop Thomas Kelly,
U.S. Catholic Conference general
secretary; Sister of Mercy Theresa
Kane, president of the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious;
Dolores Leckey, director of the
National Conference of Catholic-
Bishops’ laity secretariat; Rep.
Robert Drinan (D-Mass.), .a Jesuit
priest; Sister Elizabeth Carroll,
superior general of the Religious
Sisters of Mercy, Pittsburgh, and
Sister of Mercy Margaret Farley of
the Yale Divinity School.
The United Nations Decade for
Women World Conference, scheduled
for Copenhagen July 14-30, is
planned as a mid term evaluation of
the 1975-1985 U.N. women’s
decade. It is scheduled to bring
together more than 10,000 women
from 150 countries to discuss
progress toward goals of the women’s
decade and to develop a plan of
action for the remaining five years.
The Washington religious
consultation, according to its
sponsors, will be an examination of
U.S. progress toward equality for
women and of the impact U.S.
foreign aid programs have on
women’s equality and development
in the Third World.
Also expected to be discussed at
the Washington consultation are
ways in which U.S. religious
denominations can work for justice
for women in employment,
education and health.
tranquilizers for non-medical
purposes in the past six months,
49,000 lived in Nassau and Suffolk
counties, and 117,000 in New York
City. Miss Ash commented:
“We’ve found that for every man
using valium as an anti-depressant,
there are five or six women. It’s
often the housewife syndrome. Some
are in the 20th or 25th year of taking
prescribed medications.
“We need to build up a giant
support system. For instance,
Alcholoics Anonymous has 1,200
meetings in New York City a week.
Members can get help any time of
the day or night.”
Initial weekly Saturday night
meetings of Pills and Pot Anonymous
in February were attended by up to
75 persons, some of them family
members of drug users. Miss Ash has
plans to organize a supplementary
Pilanon group of families similar to
Alanon, the AA organization for
families and friends of alcoholics.
Miss Ash, an Episcopalian, became
familiar with both PPA and Pilanon
while employed between 1974 and
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Rehabilitation Center of Roosevelt
Hospital in New York.
“There are a thousand reasons
why people take pills, and we really
don’t try to go into them,” she
reflected. “It appears that the drugs
themselves perpetutate the problem.
“Our definition of the problem is
whether the habit is interfering with
any aspect of a person’s life. Has it
become unmanageable?”
Since word of the PPA program
has spread, Miss Ash and her superior
in the Mercy Hospital alcohol
detoxification department, John
Quirk, have had many calls from
concerned parents and high school
teachers and organizations. Many
express anxiety, she said, that
marijuana has now become a
“pre-teen problem.”
MEETS U.S. DELEGATION ~ Pope John Paul
Ii is flanked by members of the U.S. Senate
Foreign Relations Committee during a special
audience at the Vatican. They are, from left. Sen.
Claiborne Pell (D-R.E), Sen. Howard Baker
(R-Tenn.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.), and
Peter Sarros, assistant to the president’s envoy to
the Vatican. (NC Photo)
RAINY AUDIENCE - Sheltered from the rain
by an umbrella held by a priest, Pope John Paul II
waves to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square during
his Wednesday audience. (NC Photo)
Umbrella Can Be Frustrating
BY NANCY FRAZIER
VATICAN CITY (NC) - It can be
frustrating when a carefully laid plan
is ruined by a nun with an umbrella.
But Marjorie Weeke, a Whittier,
Calif., native who has- worked at the
Vatican for 12 years, learned long
ago that the communications field
can sometimes produce unpleasant
surprises.
The scene was Norcia, Italy,
during Pope John Paul II’s March 23
visit. Mrs. Weeke, an official of the
audio-visual services department of
the Pontifical Commission for Social
Communications, found a spot which
would give 40 local photographers a
clear view of the outdoor papal Mass.
Part of the view was blocked,
however, when one nun in a group
shifted her umbrella.
“Raise your umbrella,” a
photographer yelled to the nun. The
entire group of nuns complied, and
the photographers found themselves
clicking at a sea of umbrellas.
Mrs. Weeke recounts the story
with a resigned smile, saying that “if
it wasn’t so tragic, it would be
funny.”
Six days a week, she deals with
representatives of the electronic
media. They have swamped the
office “like a tidal wave” since the
death of Pope Paul VI, throughout
the* short reign of Pope John Paul I
and during the pontificate of his
Polish successor.
“Our work has increased 100
percent since the election of John
Paul II,” Mrs. Weeke said. “There’s a
constant flow of requests from all
the countries.”
Anyone interested in filming a
documentary on Vatican grounds
must go through the audio-visual
services department. Some are
surprised to find a woman in a
Vatican administrative post.
“I don’t pay much attention” to
being one of the few female officials
in the Vatican, Mrs. Weeke says.
“But I’m usually in the minority
wherever I go.”
She recalls a recent meeting at the
Vatican which began with the
speaker saying that no lay people
were present. Then the speaker
noticed Mrs. Weeke and amended his
statement.
Things have definitely improved,
however, from the times when she
would make telephone calls to
people who refused to believe she
worked for the Vatican.
“They’d say, ‘have your superior
call me,”’ she says.
A graduate of Marquette
University with bachelor’s and
master’s degrees in journalism, Mrs.
Weeke first got the yen to travel in
the mid-1950s when she was editar
of the San Clemente Sun in
California.
She joined the junior officers
program of the U.S. Information
Agency in 1957, “even though they
didn’t like women then.” She served
in Brussels, Belgium, and Casablanca,
Morocco.
But when she married John
Weeke, then a Danish diplomat, she
was “politely fired” on the theory
that a married woman would no
longer be free to travel. (The policy
has since been changed.)
The Weekes lived in Denmark. In
1965 they came to Rome, where
John runs a travel agency. Mrs.
Weeke joined Vatican Radio in 1968
and then moved to the
communications commission, where
she has worked for eight years.
“Their son, 17-year-old Stephen,
is a “Roman at heart” but will attend
college in the United States next
year.
“For a marriage with two
different nationalities, Rome is a
great place to live,” Mrs. Weeke says
“There’s a little piece of it in
every-one.”
Over the years, she has seen the
Vatican become “more open, more
relaxed, with not so much stiff
protocol.”
And although the pace of her job
has changed, one thing hasn’t. “Some
days it’s frustrating,” she says, “but
it’s always a challenge.”
Moral And Ethical Implications Of Genetics Symposium Focus
WINOOSKI, Vt. (NC) - The
moral and ethical implications of
applied human genetics were the
focus of a symposium at St.
Michael’s College in Winooski, held
as part of the college’s 75th
anniversary celebration.
Authorities on law, genetics,
religion and ethics discussed the
problems and techniques currently
involved in genetic screening and
counseling.
Dr. Richard Albertini, professor
of medicine at the University of
Vermont and director of the
Vermont Regional Genetic Center,
opened the meeting with an
explanation of the fundamentals of
genetic technology.
Albertini noted the short history
of genetics. In the 1830s the concept
of the cell was initiated and in 1865
Gregor Mendel wrote his famous
paper concerning the genetic
characteristics of the common sweet
pea. By the 1900s the chromosome
had been discovered, which
supported the theory of inherited
traits.
Genetic theory blossomed in this
century, according to Albertini. He
said the rapid progress in genetic
history has raised some very difficult
questions.
Genetic screening and counseling
are the products of the rapid
advancement in genetic technology.
These processes are used to discover
and correct problems, also known as
mutations, in genes or chromosomes.
Mutations can trigger a change in
cell behavior which passes from
generation to generation. Some of
these changes are harmless, while
others such as muscular dystrophy,
cystic fibrosis, color blindness and
cancer are difficult or even dangerous
to live with.
Prospective parents concerned
about possible defective genes can
now use genetic screening, and
newborns can be screened, said Dr.
John C. Fletcher of the National
Institutes of Health near Washington.
Moral questions involve who
should receive screening: those who
can afford it or those with the
greatest need? In addition, there are
questions on who should be told the
results of screening and whether
screening should be voluntary.
Fletcher said that insurance
companies would like to have the
information to help them calculate
risks. “But should they have this
information?” Fletcher asked.
Father Edward J. Mahoney,
associate director of religious
education for the Diocese of
Burlington, Vt., said several
industries, particularly those in the
petrochemical business, screen
potential employees to determine
whether they are overly susceptible
to diseases attributable to their
working conditions.
This might help workers remain
healthy, but, “Is this a form of
worker discrimination?” asked
Father Mahoney.
He added that the patient has the
right to a full disclosure of the
information obtained in screening
and that the patient should be
educated and prepared by the
physician to accept all possible
information.
Genetic counseling, according to
Father Albert Moraczewski, vice
president for medical and moral
research at the Pope John XXIII
Center in St. Louis, is a process of
communication which attempts to
deal with the human problems
associated with the risk of genetic
disease in a person or family.
The genetic counselor should help
the patient comprehend the medical
facts and risks, Father Moraczewski
said, and also enumerate the options
for dealing with the problem, lie said
often a physician has a tendency to
make a decision for a patient.
The symposium was held March
19 and 20.
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